JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Did the daily comment links from December disappear on purpose?
Historical links like the one below no longer work (correctly):
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/12/wednesday-138/#comment-2888869
Apologies for the repetition from the New Years entries
10
As explained in the New Year post these unthreadeds have temporarily disappeared until the implications of what the new Hate Speech laws mean. Preumably most of the comments will be able to be returned.
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There was a link to Thomas Sowell’s pdf I was after but could not find it 🙂
10
Gone but not forgotten. The link I posted that is.
Here ya go:
https://ufile.io/3o5bvtmq
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Blocked.
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Works with vpn set to USA
10
A terrible tragedy to start the new year. It seems the fire started in a very trivial manner. That a sparkler could set a ceiling ablaze in a well regulated country like Switzerland should make us all cautious
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15426855/Moment-ceiling-catches-fire-sparking-inferno-killed-40-people-injured-100-Swiss-luxury-nightclub-witness-describes-seeing-people-burning.html
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We now hear ‘about 40 dead’. Devastatingly.
Many were young, too; that will be very hard for the families.
Auto
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Now up to 47 dead according to the link. Terrible.
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The ‘sparklers’ looked more like Roman candles in their ad, not like the little sparklers for indoor use as we understand them.
It’s a horrible tragedy for those people involved.
50
Will the new mayor of new York be as radical as his election promises suggest? It seems he is very keen to spend other people’s, money and an increasing number of people are happy to receive the largesse.
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/01/01/zohran-mamdani-becomes-first-new-york-mayor-sworn-in-using-koran/
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Most of his financial promises require NYS legislation as he well knows since he was a member of the Assembly, on the Energy Committee no less. Little if any of that will happen. My fav was the $30/hr minimum wage.
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https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/2006894539982668044?s=20
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Ev charging is a thorny matter here in the UK where over a third of properties don’t have a driveway where they could charge a car, even assuming they could afford to install a charger in the first place.
Other people would have to rely on running cables over pavements or using a public charger.
We have a set of two chargers in a nearby public car park which could power a total of four cars at a time. Someone managed to reverse into the pole that advertises the chargers and caused quite a lot of damage to the extentthe charger is out of action.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2026/01/01/our-labour-mp-remains-silent-about-ev-problems/
Not that we ever see cars using them
191
In our local town there are two chargers in a carpark. I’ve seen a car being recharged precisely twice in all the monnths they’ve been there.
I wonder who paid for the installation?
In addition, that has taken two parking spaces no longer available for local drivers, while sitting empty practically all the time.
110
My local shopping centre has a four EV charger stations in a row, now busiest time of the year I have been shopping three times and only observed one EV on charge on one visit.
50
‘Who paid’ is a question I also have. We have 3 chargers that have been there for about 2 years, and then another two installed last year at our showgrounds. Nothing in the council minutes to indicate whose they are or where the money came from! Have not seen any of them in use.
As I live in a tiny town over 1200 kms away from Brisbane in the central west, I don’t expect to see any ev travelers out here any time soon, and apart from a married couple of GPs, there isn’t any take up locally either. Will they break down before they get any use? I did hear mechanical-like noises coming from the new ones when I walked past the other day. So there’s some kind of moving parts (??).
50
I just watched an outstanding 16 minute interview with Douglas Murray on YouTube of the series “Murray’s Insights”.
I wish I could discuss and share it.
But in 2026 Australia, it’s probably not a “safe” topic.
I wonder how long before Australia starts censoring certain topics from YouTube?
Strangely enough, the video that followed that was a Sky News Australia interview between Rita Panahi and Douglas Murray from one year ago about how the Left in Once Great Britain are trying to silence/cancel/arrest him for his unapproved thoughts and telling the truth.
Or as Douglas described it he “used my eyes in recent decades and also used my pen”.
In the future we can probably expect to see fewer conservative commentators like Murray in Australia or on social media feeds because people will be too scared to interview him or post his material due to censorship concerns. Even if not warranted they will be cautious as they won’t want to spend vast amounts of money defendibg themselves in front of some Government court or tribunal defending themselves against the “crime” of posting an alternative opinion.
I’m glad I got to see Douglas when he last visited Australia, I doubt the Government would grant him a visa again.
The real tragedy is that the average Australian Green/Teal/Lib/Lab voter will neither notice or care when various topics start disappearing from their media feeds. They will remain in their ignorant bliss.
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Thanks for the reference to “Murray insights”, David. Will look it up as I think Murray is an insightful and courageous commentator on events affecting all of us.
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We need One Nation
130
The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has demanded the censorship of scientific debate and views on climate science by scientists, that do not align with the official narrative promoted by Greta Thunberg. Censorship is required because data, and scientific evidence which counters her narrative, sows distrust of the deep state global elite, and Democratic People’s democracies. The Democratic People’s European Union is planning to broaden censorship to include the topics of climate and energy science. The Democratic People’s United Kingdom based fake news detection organisation called ‘Logically AI Ltd’ has promised to destroy all scientists in the world, critical of the theories of Swedish experts Svante Arrhenius and Greta Thunberg.
The Enemies of Logically AI Ltd and Dr Greta Thunberg (LL.D) are:
(1) The Conspiracy Milieu who distrust the deep state elites and their “Great Reset”.
(2) Scientists who regard ‘climate action’ as an authoritarian or elitist project.
(3) Russians, Israelis, Rape Victims and the Vaccine Injured, who like Putins Pravda, amplify divisive climate content.
(4) Arab Oil Sheikhs, the China National Coal Group, Coal India Limited, and working class miners.
(5) Joe Rogan, who allowed retired MIT Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Dr. Richard Lindzen, to say that man-made Climate Change is a quasi-religious movement predicated on an absurd scientific narrative: https://expose-news.com/2026/01/01/report-encourages-broadening-censorship/
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I refer to my post yesterday when I asked Gulag AI what are the top ten safe topics that can be discussed in a regime of censored non-free speech that Australia is rapidly developing into. It gave the following ten headings with explanations which I have removed for brevity but see the link. Essentially, anything discussed under those headings is OK as long as it conforms to the Official Government Narrative.
Here are some “safe” comments on the top ten topics we are unlikely to be censored on as long as we don’t deviate from Government policy.
https://www.joannenova.com.au/2025/12/happy-new-year-2026/#comment-2889070
Official Government Policy and Promotion:
What more is there to say? Albo is the best PM Australia ever had. Heil Albo!
Family and Traditional Values:
WARNING! Probably not safe to talk about traditional family values in Australia. Heil Albo!
Online Safety for Minors:
Removing access to alternative opinions on anything taught in schools, and access to topics not taught along schools like history, hobbies, movie reviews, retro videos etc. is a good thing for under 16’s. Heil Albo!
Media Literacy and “Anti-Misinformation”:
Fact checkers are good. Fact checkers tell the official truth. They did a wonderful job during covid. Heil Albo!
Economic Development and Infrastructure:
Albo is doing a wonderful job with the economy. It’s a good thing to shut down all the power stations and industry and spend staggering amounts of money without restraint and creat Australia’s largest ever Government debt. Heil Albo!
National Culture and Heritage:
Rewrite history to say how evil the early settlers were. Currently importing people at ten times the rate that new housing can be built is wonderful. Heil Albo!
Approved Environmental or Health Issues:
Make sure to go out and get your 38th covid booster. Heil Albo!
Non-Political Entertainment and Sports:
Sport! Sport! Sport! As Austen Tayshus says. Bread and circuses for the masses as Juvenal said. Heil Albo!
Corporate and Commercial Regulation:
Make sure to keep stifling industry with pointless regulations. Heil Albo!
Scientific and Technological Innovation:
Keep building those windmills and solar panels and make Australia that Green Energy Superpower. Heil Albo!
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On BBC Radio 5 Live, Marianna Spring of BBC Verify, verified all the ‘information in the World’ as either correct or misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, conspiracy theory or hate speech not authorised by the Office For Censorship Obedience & Manipulation (OFCOM) and the BBC lead Trusted Newspeak International (TNI). Big Pharma funded Fact Checkers have also confirmed that Covid vaccines are “Safe & Effective” and Google Fact Checkers have confirmed that evidence found for people suffering from vaccine injuries, like cancer and blood clots to the brain from the mandated mRNA jabs, found in scientific papers not funded by big pharma, are all officially labelled disinformation, and banned by OFCOM. All other evidence is restricted and controlled by the authorities. Any evidence that is not officially approved by the State and its Establishment is therefore completely unauthorised under orders from Ken (Duggie) McCallum of MI5. All dissent, all evidence and all opinions that the State and its Establishment “partners” need to bury in order to maintain “Trust in the Government” can be expunged by using “psychological nudge weapons” to label all who hold anti-Establishment opinions “conspiracy theorists” and by calling all the evidence that questions power “conspiracy theory”, by order of King Charles III of Australia, Canada, England and Wales. However in response, the US Secretary of State of the rebel republic, Marco Rubio, said that “The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.”
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https://www.cfact.org/2026/01/01/hochul-must-reveal-the-ruinous-cost-of-the-climate-act/
Starting the year with a bang. Here is the beginning:
“New York Governor Hochul has been saying for months that the regulations required by law to meet the Climate Act will be ruinously costly to New Yorkers. The draft regs were reportedly finished a year ago. The Governor must be citing their official cost assessment.
So where are the numbers? Why has Hochul not released the cost numbers so New Yorkers can see who gets hammered and how much? Keeping these ruinous cost numbers secret is outrageous. It should be an election issue.”
Lots more in the article. Hope it is allowable.
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I wonder if discussing Australia’s similarity to Nineteen Eighty Four and/or Brave New World would be approved by Government censors?
I’ll take a risk here. But what could be wrong with it? Both scenarios are good for totalitarian Governments.
Neil Postman wrote,:
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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It is fair to discuss the drawbacks of censorship. Something we are going to be doing a lot of around here.
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Thank you, Jo!
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How prescient were both these writers? Western society is following the predictions so clearly it is terrifying. But critical thinking has not disappeared, although I fear it is largely confined to a minority in the population, and particularly largely in the older generation.
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It seems to survive outside cities, ie, in the real world where people know where food comes from and how much work it takes. Regrettably, that is indeed a minority.
When farmers protest with tractors in cities, the city dwellers have no idea what tractors are or what they do. That’s why the protests are futile.
Has this comment broken the anti-free-speech laws? Like the laws in the UK, I suspect that it is impossible to know before publishing, because the law applies backwards. With normal law, you can logically test a proposed action or statement against the written law to see if it breaks the law. In most cases, you can tell whether it will be legal, with only some instances in the boundary zone. Under the anti-free-speech law, the only way of finding out if a statement is legal is to say it in public or publish it. If someone is upset by it, then you have broken the law. Truth is no defence.
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David Maddison,
At the start of that Neil Postman piece:
That doesn’t sound like Nineteen Eighty-Four to me. Is he confusing it with Fahrenheit 451?
For my money, Orwell’s key message was quite early in the book, when Winston was about to start keeping a diary:
It’s a world where raw power is exercised at a whim. You are kept constantly aware of this, and your own powerlessness to stop it.
UK’s non-crime hate incidents seem a reasonable real-world example — a step further than our Section 18C.
IMO Orwell’s picture is more compelling that Huxley’s, though I think the world we live in is nearer to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, where bureaucracy rules supreme and for nobody’s benefit at all.
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Autocracies are vulnerable because the leaders are told only positive news or run the risk of being sacked, sent to a gulag or murdered.
Democracies are more resilient and can withstand the test of time.
‘ … bureaucracy rules supreme …’
In democracies the bureaucracy is retrained and audited so that they are kept in check. The Australians allow the public servants to keep their jobs even when the government changes.
It has been reported that 1984 (in book form) can be purchased in Beijing, clearly the authorities are blind to its significance.
03
What are these “books” of which you speak? 😁
It’s clear people are increasingly turning to “AI” bots for quick answers.
“ChatGPT says…”, “Grok says…”, “Google AI says…” etc.
A BAD trend in motion.
I posted this ages ago, but it’s as relevant as ever.
Ask Siri, job interview:
https://youtu.be/0h8UR60dk4c?si=p4IAxQ7wGYl7fZgl
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Look at it this way: They are trying to keep the pot from boiling over by clamping a lid over it. We all know how that works. Especially when the pot is sitting in smouldering coles of discontent.
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(I hope this is a safe topic.)
It’s very interesting about how electronic analogue computers which were the op-amp bassd workhorses of computing in the 1940’s and 1950’s and retained niche uses into the 1990’s are making a comeback, but in a different form.
They are being used for AI. An advantage is dramatically lower power consumption than digital AI such as with CPUs, GPUs, NPUs and TPUs so inference models can be run on edge devices (phones, IoT etc.).
Another advantage is almost instantaneous speed, they can compute as fast as an electronic circuit can settle and in parallel.
Finally they can perform in-memory compute. The slow and energy-intensive von Neumann bottleneck of shuffling data between memory and processor is eliminated because the computation is done directly in memory. Solving vector-matrix operations are the core of AI and these are done in-memory by natural physical laws such as Ohm’s and Kirchoff’s current and voltage laws.
Modern analog computing is not a replacement for digital but a useful complement for edge AI inference applications.
I have been researching this topic for an article, hence my interest.
One thing I found truly mind-blowing was the little known Mark 1 Perceptron which was an analogue computer built by Frank Rosenblatt in 1958. It was capable of classifying simple shapes with its neural network architecture of up to 1000 neurons. Work seemingly forgotten today.
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Didn’t I mention the switch back to analog from digital a while ago?
Digital has its limitations.
Maybe “Annie Log”, the LM339-based AI bot? 😁
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So?
00
Here’s an article that for censorious Australia, presents a “dangerous” alternative opinion, outside of the Official Narrative. E.g. it says non-woke “sciency” things like electricity is physics, not a “policy construct”… However, it’s not censored, yet.
It mat be PAYWALLED for some but not others, depending upon how may free AFR articles you have read.
190
The Australian Energy Market Commission expects real prices to rise 13 per cent this decade.
They’re living in a different reality to the one I reside in.
Only a 13% rise this decade?
How wrong can they be and maintain some form of credibility?
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We’d be very lucky if that 13% rise was in one year. More likely it’s 3 to 6 months we would see such a rise in. The author must have made a typo. Must have meant year not decade.
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I found this on the AEMC Govt news site. This was posted on 4th December 2025.
Gawd help us!
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I notice almost nothing in the Lamestream Media about the mass uprising in Iran.
In response to the protests the regime is cutting off or slowing the internet but apparently Starlink is enabling connectivity to be maintained.
I assume it’s not “news” because the Left who constitute most media are on the side of the regime, not the pro-freedom protesters.
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Murdoch is the most left !.
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What is this “lamestream media” of which you speak?
Ah, yes…
https://imgbox.com/zcMzUqU8
Die faster MSM! 😆
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The MSM have earned that level of trust.
They have overtaken our politicians in the level of mistrust.
Wow!
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‘ … are on the side of the regime,’
The left also want to see the downfall of the regime.
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I disagree. The Left have shown themselves to be supporters of such religious fundamentalists.
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This is different, its a grass roots uprising because there is no food or water and millions are suffering.
A theocratic regime is coming to an end, much to the delight of the whole world.
I think both sides of parliament will be happy with this outcome and presumably the Shaheed drone production plant would close.
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A theocratic regime is coming to an end, much to the delight of the whole world.
An interesting/admirable thought/hope.
Alas I will rely on the Missouri state nickname.
“The Show Me State”
Followed by thoughts about “the devil you know”.
00
FWIW
‘Who Needs the Americans?’: The Future Is a European Army”
Read it all!
https://twitchy.com/brettt/2025/12/31/who-needs-the-americans-the-future-is-a-european-army-n2423433
With a fuster to get it on the road
“Ajax, a sorry tale of incompetence, weak thinking and self-deception”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/ajax-a-sorry-tale-of-incompetence-weak-thinking-and-self-deception/
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re Ajax: Wouldn’t the vehicle design become a lot simpler once it is understood that a reconnaisance vehicle doesn’t have to carry people?
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A reconnaissance vehicle that doesn’t carry people flys.
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I bet she thumbed out this this tweet thinking it would really bother all those provincial American slobs. What she got instead was ‘we would like nothing more than to leave protecting Europe to the Europeans’.
Sadly, it is not a serious proposal, since no western European nation is capable of fielding a competent modern military, and no western European country has enough military age citizens who are patriotic enough to be willing to fight for their country. They’ve spent decades teaching their kids that nations are passe, that borders are racist, and that the most important values are individualism and consumerism. Patriotism and self-sacrifice are for suckers.
Western Europe couldn’t fight it’s way out of a wet paper bag.
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‘Who Needs the Americans?’: The Future Is a European Army”
It feels like disinformation, or satire, but I approve of the sentiment.
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Judging from her twitter history, I think she is a bot. It’s nothing but pro-EU militarism, particularly in regards to the Russia-Ukraine war. Real humans usually have some personal posts or the odd cat video.
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Real humans also make typos and other such obvious mistakes
20
The dim future of grid scale solar.
South Australia leads the world in the transition to rooftop solar and de-industrialisation. A holiday in the peak of summer gives a glimpse of what has been achieved I a decade and where it is heading.
Rooftops met the entire demand of SA from 10:30 to 3pm. There was no need for grid wind or grid solar. The grid solar managed to produce for the equivalent of 30 minutes; putting out 400MWh before 10am and after 3pm. And it cost $1324 for the privilege of generating power. It will get about $2400 on the sale of LGCs so net around $1100. This is a billion dollars of assets producing a daily return of only $1100 on one of the sunniest days of the year. It had potential to produce another 5400MWh but the price was so negative that the business would be crippled in one day and it would have collapsed the grid due to over voltage. It appears SA region set a new low price record yesterday at MINUS $328/MWh as the operators struggled to reduce generating capacity.
Grid wind did somewhat better with 17.9GWh produced and 4.5GWh curtailed.
Some might rightly argue that it was a sunny day and a holiday. However that simply offers a glimpse of the future. SA is only 10 years into its transition to rooftops and de-industrialisation. It still has operating iron blast furnace and lead smelter, both on life support, that will be closed during the next decade and there are still a huge number of existing rooftops without solar panels and households and businesses without batteries. World record setting grid price is accelerating the transition to rooftops.
SA is Australia’s future. A country devoid of heavy industry other than mining, which operates off-grid or off a captive grid free from carbon capture. A country powered by rooftops and local batteries.
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Australia can be a lovely place without heavy industry. We can pick flowers and have lovely parks to sit in. It’s the life of the Eloi in “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells. Someone else will run the country, and they will not be friendly.
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Being a perfectly balanced and opened to every other ideas I do not discard the bucolic Australia.
Why not be sure to wear some flowers in your hear when you handle your passport to Aus Border Force ?
Growing up I truly loved HG Wells but now I learnt that he was actually on the side of society he said was scary.
As much as most Western intelligentsia he worked to bring it up.
Now we live his nightmare.
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Bringing in plant material? This isn’t San Francisco!
00
Weren’t the Eloi food for the Morlocks?
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A good article RW. BTW what is “LGC”? It’s less than ideal when posts include TLA’s without explanation.
00
LGCs have been around for a long time and every Australian contributes in some manner to pay for them. They are Large-scale Generating Gertificates.
Searching on “LGC electricity” gives immediate results on government energy regulator. here in Australia.
LGCs are currently priced at $6.33/MWh. The solar farms in SA paid average $3.31/MWh to export . So their income on energy was $3.02/MWh. Not much. And they would have paid some FCAS costs as well for grid stability services from synchronous plant.
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Always interesting commentary by “The Russian Dude”.
The following comment sums up this presentation nicely..
His comments on the “illusion of alliances” is also pertinent.
20
““illusion of alliances” ”
Yes, the Germans had a treaty with Russia just before WW2, but that was an illusion too. Of course now those same treacherous Germans are our greatest allies in propping up NATO, and our greatest allies from beating the Germans are our deadliest enemies… You can never trust a politician.
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Operation Barbarossa was a blast!
Where are we (the west) framed against Germany’s past?
Early to mid 1938 I’d say.
The smart ones woke up and got out at that point…
And not forgetting that great leader Churchill who wanted to invade Russia post WW2 too.
Yep, never trust pollies.
20
Politicians are “we the people’s” elected representatives.
If we have bad pollies [who can disagree?] look in the mirror. Voting for libertarians hoping to change the world is childish.
20
If you want to know why we vote such incompetents in as Albanese, you only have to read the comments in here, an article in the SMH about how terrible Robert Kennedy is. Obviously the article is massively pro-vaccine and probably paid for by a manufacturer, but the comments are a massive display of complete ignorance from people who only ever see mainstream media and believe in it fully.
” Robert F. Kennedy Jr has wreaked steady havoc on the nation’s vaccination policies and programs. He cancelled hundreds of millions of dollars in federal investment for mRNA vaccines, including ones that would have improved our ability to fight the next flu pandemic. He chased away doctors and scientists at the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC who oversaw federal vaccine policy for decades.
Perhaps worst of all, he fired the entire 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices, known as ACIP. It is responsible for advising the CDC on which vaccines to recommend for whom. It now consists of a mix of ideologues and incompetents handpicked by Kennedy himself. “
Apparently-
thimerasol is good for you and contains no mercury, as its not mentioned.
Revoking MMRV for babies /children under four is bad.
Stopping mRNA vax for people under 65 is bad.
Making HepB optional for newborns is also bad.
The writer is horrified that the USA might align their vaccine regime with Denmark, Japan or Germany.
That turns up in the comments where someone is worried that the market for vaccines will shrink if the USA uses less of them, raising the prices for us.
It ends up with-
“Vaccines are a triumph of human ingenuity, modern medicine and public health.”
..and there you have the philosophy of the New York Times, ‘cos New York is such a shining example of a city to the world.
” Let’s hope the vaccination rate in Australia does not slip below 90% and better still 95% of the population that way hopefully our population and children in particular are spared unnecessary disease”
” Nature has a way of self-correcting though. individuals who are more receptive to anti vax and MAHA nonsense unfortunately tend to get selected out of the gene pool in the longer term. ”
“he is the perfect example of what the Trump administration has for so long, lumped onto America ie unqualified fools who’s opinions are given the same airtime and credibility by the media as those of real experts.”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/this-is-the-damage-rfk-jnr-has-done-in-less-than-a-year-20260101-p5nr3w.html
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It boggles the mind that anyone could write such tosh and publish it with a straight face!
Of course the opposite is true in every single statement.
Can we survive the censorship which is coming to prevent questioning of these wrong ideas?
170
Nature and evolution know best, but big pharma knows fearmongering and money.
Lefty doctors will shake their voodoo rattles at the anti-vaxxers, but be unable to defend their stance against the tidal wave of evidence against them.
27 shots before the age of 2?
Where do they live – The Congo?
100
FWIW – a new place for your geography
“Long Live Somaliland!”
https://www.newenglishreview.org/long-live-somaliland/
10
I am against Bondi Royal Commission which will total wast of time and money. Every relevant fact (words of public figures are facts too) is already known.
Moreover, if “societal cohesion” is its the real purpose, RC will be counterproductive, causing mostly frustration in many people and hatred in some.
13
Vlad, the frustration already exists, most obviously on the side of those harmed by the Bondi shooting and of the general public utterly fed up with the obfuscation and dodging of the current government.
That frustration can be lessened by the exposure of government processes and inaction that led to this tragedy.
The hatred already exists on one side of this situation,it’s historical and implacable, and arguably would not be increased by exposure of attitudes and actions via a RC. There may be upset and anger at that exposure, but you can’t heal a festering sore without ripping off the bandaid and treating it.
A poor analogy maybe, but how better to describe the current situation in our “multicultural” society that seems to not be co-existing too well just now.
Australian society as a whole was harmed that day, even if many don’t realise it. A thorough, honest public examination of all that led up to it can only be a cleansing operation. We need it.
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Thanks for your polite and firm point of view.
I am as firm that RC will not cause neither cleansing within the rulers nor satisfaction of the ruled.
What will definite change everyone’s opinion is a court case and you know the names of defendants.
11
If we aren’t allowed to publicly discuss the causes of atrocities, would an RC be the only possible place to publicly examine them?
30
That might depend on the terms of reference for the RC.
And the willingness of the head of the commission to be “creative”.
Someday someone will discover that Sharia includes attention to a large number of “groups” in addition to those of Jewish heritage.
00
THE KING’S SPEECH
I listened to a little of King Charles III’s Christmas message and turned it off after a few minutes because it seemed to be a bunch of platitudes with nothing of substance.
Dr Gavin Ashenden takes a more despairing and analytical view. He agrees that there was no substance but discusses what the King should have said, if he has any interest in saving his kingdom.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/what-the-king-of-nice-should-have-said-in-his-christmas-message/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2026-01-01&utm_campaign=TCW+Daily+Email
The kingdom is in desperate trouble and King Charles has the power and the moral duty to do something about it, but instead he read a prepared speech drafted by palace staff, which ignored all the current problems and threats and instead suggests that his subjects should come together to solve problems.
I don’t think Prince William has any better ideas so if Charles does not act it could all be over.
140
There was a little more substance in President Zelenskyy’s speech, summarised here..
11
> King Charles III’s Christmas message
I’m surprised! I didn’t know he was still alive.
Compared to his mother he’s outstandingly inconsequential.
130
Charles cares about continuity of The Firm. He only cares about the kingdom to the extent it supports continuity of The Firm.
60
Vlad, have you come across Igor Ovsyany as an author? I picked up a little book called “The Origins of WW2” by him yesterday, translated from Russian by Arkadi Illarionov in 1984.
I’m looking forward to a different view on how it all happened.
10
Have not heard the names , will look now.
10
Not able to locate actual text of “The Origins of WW2” I read 1974 book of Dr. I D Ovsyaniy : MIstery in which war was born
My educated guess – somebody decided to make capital of the very popular book by Taylor of the same name – У Истоков Второй Мировой Войны and translated old book to English.
00
Ah yes, thankyou. That is quite likely. Published by Novosti in Moscow, its a small paperback or very dense print. Someone must have thought it was worth trying to spread his view, and hence the Russian side’s, into the English-speaking world.
00
FWIW
“More Than Just A Housing Bubble”
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2026/01/01/more-than-just-a-housing-bubble/
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FWIW
“Ukraine Strikes Bar in Kherson Killing 24 – Including a Child – And Wounding 50, as Russians Send US ‘Decrypted Drone Data’ Proving Massive Attack Against Putin’s Residence”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/01/ukraine-strikes-bar-kherson-killing-24-including-child/
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Unbridled disinformation and outright lies.
17
How do you know?
The Russians claim they have the receipts!
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FWIW
Curious that there is no endless stream of YSM articles on Ukrainian civilian casualties despite the amount of “Russian incoming”
10
Are you referring to the killing of at least 24 people, including a child, in a drone attack on a hotel and cafe in Kherson?
02
“Curious that there is no endless stream of YSM articles on Ukrainian civilian casualties despite the amount of “Russian incoming””
I’ve thought that strange since 2022 when it started, and in the end put it down to abysmal Russian missiles made from old washing machines. They attack nearly every night with up to 100 drones and missiles or even more, blow up buildings and stuff, yet even the Ukies only claim a handful of people died. I always thought a missile would kill dozens when it hit an apartment block…
There are some aberrations, such as a hotel full of foreign mercenaries may not actually get counted as civilian kills, or the only people in the building were the night shift on duty in a power station.
10
The mostly peaceful attack on the military New Year celebration:-
https://www.rt.com/russia/630310-ukraine-drone-strike-kherson/
00
FWIW
“Welcome To 2026: Europe Laying Groundwork For Climate Science Censorship! ”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/12/31/welcome-to-2026-europe-laying-groundwork-for-climate-science-censorship/
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‘ … the topics of climate and energy science.’
In an Australian context, censorship is already in place. The MSM is reluctant to talk about alternative viewpoints on climate and energy, its the sin of omission and we are poorer for it.
61
You can add the medical industry to that EG, you will never get a balanced explanation of sickness, health and treatments where there is money to be made.
The MSM is quite happy to run with the approved opinions on global warming, they treat the alternative views on the net as if they don’t exist. Once some subject gets so outrageous that people no longer respect it, they will slowly sink it from view, so they never admit what they were talking about was rubbish or wrong, they just pretend that never existed as well.
I love people who put up a politician’s speech today, and underneath they have the same person giving the opposite opinion a decade back.
40
Medical practitioners are too closely aligned with big Pharma, it borders on corrupt practice. And they are ferocious in condemning alternative medicines, demanding total acceptance of the status quo.
I’m confident that a united Coalition can kick out the Social Democrats, a two prong attack on climate and energy should grab the attention of the masses.
The MSM has to report on political activity, the more outrageous the better.
00
For example, a quiet charismatic politician only has to say CO2 doesn’t cause global warming.
https://notrickszone.com/2026/01/02/new-study-human-co2-emissions-responsible-for-1-57-of-global-temperature-change-since-1750/
00
FWIW – a New Year message
“Years ago, at one of the darkest moments, a friend in the Austen fandom gave me a motto in a quote from George S. Paton. The quote is: Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.
It’s one of the things I had pinned to my board, and which kept me going when it seemed like I’d hit the bottom, and then there was another bottom underneath.
I wasn’t sure I believed it. Or at least I didn’t believe there could be bouncing, and there could be success. Look, after a while you lose sight of where you hoped to go. After a while things get lost in the shuffle.
But it turns out it was right, anyway.
It was only after losing my career, my beloved home state, the familiar places, the things I loved and all my certainties about the world and life in general (in 2020) that I had the courage to write the book I’d been avoiding for the last … forty plus years.
And it worked. How high will it bounce? I don’t know. Jury still out. But it did give me a bounce anyway. It gave me hope back.
Perhaps the country too needed to hit bottom. Which we did in the four years of autopen. Let’s hope we bounce all the way to the stars.
My friend Charlie Martin says “You can’t recover for someone else.” And that’s of course, true. Whatever is holding you back, whether real or not, whether self-inflicted or not, you have to fight it on your own. I can’t fight it for you. No one can.
What I can do is give you hope. People have hit bottom before, and then bounced really high. And maybe it will happen again. Maybe it will happen for you.
You won’t know till you hit bottom. And start bouncing.
This coming year: remember to bounce. Bounce to the stars!”
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2025/12/31/bounce/
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And now for something completely different – banjo and pipes – does it work?
Video quality not so good, but musical Transatlantic co-operation at its best.
20
Walmart permanently closes all self checkouts
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/walmart-forced-to-permanently-close-self-checkout-lanes-retail-s-automation-bet-starts-unraveling/vi-AA1Tm7yf
They did it for profitability, not customer service though.
40
This is going to sound or be perceived as silly, but I can honestly say that I am confused.
Recently, I had occasion to be in a very ‘blue’ (socialist) state/blue city (probably one of the bluest in the continental U.S.). A nice stroll after dinner, I happened upon a vehicle with a ‘bumper sticker’ (if our Down Under friends do not know what a bumper sticker is, it is something with a very short message attached to the impact bumper of the car; some people put them on the rear hatch of the car). I do apologize if I am insulting anyone, I’m just not internationally savvy.
So, anyway: this bumper sticker was about the strangest thing I think I’ve ever seen. I do not know if I am interpreting it correctly, and I know there is some real genius here on Jo’s blog. If you can help, please un-confuse this old man (pushing 80).
We all know the international symbol for prohibition — — red circle, diagonal line through the item which is sanctioned; e.g., ‘no smoking’ is a lit cigarette with the red diagonal line through it.
Hopefully, every one has that picture.
So: here’s the bumper sticker, with the prohibition sign, and in the middle of the sign is the word, “Farms”. Not ‘wind farms’ or ‘solar farms’ or anything else, just the word “Farms”.
I’m really confused. Could the very intelligent and good and nice people of JoNova help me try to understand this message. I’m hoping it does not say what I think it says; in the area that I was, this is a message that could spread easily.
Thanks to all who may be able to assist this (apparently) cognitively-impaired senior citizen.
R.G.
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Could only find info on campaigns to ban fur farms – or factory farms. Could be?
PS: I’m definitely not one of the genius commenters!
20
It quite clearly supports the banning of food production, that is to say , real food such as meat ,dairy food, eggs,seasonal fruits.
Ask the wise “men” – what, why, how, who, when, and where.
10
Meanwhile, in Pommystan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7CExM7Dhls
Enjoy the “New Year.
Between the sand-pirates, the “One-worlders” and all the other “wanna-be” sociopaths, it’s looking to be an “interesting” and bumpy ride.
40
December snowfall record in Juneau blitz the previous record set in 1964.
December 2025 is the snowiest December ever recorded in Juneau, according to the National Weather Service Juneau. As of Wednesday morning, Juneau International Airport recorded 79.8 inches of snow. The previous December snowfall record, set in 1964, was 54.7 inches.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/warnings-pile-up-under-record-breaking-snowfall-in-juneau/ar-AA1TmqS1
I visited Juneau in May and went kayaking to view seals. Lots of seals and one glorious Bald Eagle sitting on a navigation beacon. It turned out to be the only time in my life that I could not form words because my lips were so cold they would not work.
90
Tricky running an airport with 6 feet+ of snow on the ground.
30
Saw a pic recently of a B-747 with it’s tail on the ground, nose in the air. The build up of snow on the elevators overbalanced it.
The aircraft I know with fuel down the spine, the Canberra and the F-4, had to be refuelled front to back to prevent this.
10
I actually had a swim in the glacier lake at Juneau in 1994. went in white, came out bright red. It was 5degrees.
10
Funny: when ze blob sees you doing something they disapprove of
https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_t6ydbhzhMP1v62me4.mp4
😆
10
Does anybody here have Albo’s number? I need to get in touch with him to let him know that Australia’s official inflation figure is out by a mile. The last figure I saw said 3.8%, but nothing I buy is keeping to that figure. He needs to know.
The latest example is my home and contents insurance. The renewal rec’d today represents a 17% increase from last year’s price – a touch more than Albo’s 3.8%.
There are liars, damn liars and politicians.
180
You could challenge your insurer as to why your policy has exceeded the official inflation number.
You will told it is due to Climate Change™.
You then need to ask them to explain what climate change are they talking about and provide some real numbers.
If it is in Victoria, it is probably due to dramatic rise in crime.
I was looking at different house insurance but the only way I could get a better deal was to have remotely monitored surveillance and response service. After we pay for the service, we would be a lot worse off than just accepting the current policy.
Vote One Nation to stop importing criminals.
150
As is my usual practice, I swapped insurer. I saved $300 and got better cover, because in making sure to get ‘like for like’ quotes, I discovered that my contents weren’t covered for accidental damage, only theft, earthquake and flood basically. For me, the most important risk when talking about contents is accidental damage, such as spilling red wine on a white carpet or putting my foot through a painting. Yes, I have done that.
60
Try living in Danstown
Household insurance up by 30+%
30
Just call the ABC.. I’m sure they’ll be happy to take a message.. 😉
10
“The question is whether Australians will listen and reclaim a vision of liberty grounded not in parliamentary permission, but in the inherent dignity of the human person. Because when you cannot speak—even wrongly—without fear of punishment, you are not free. You are managed.”
https://afnn.us/2025/12/31/australia-and-the-cost-of-speech-without-rights/
110
He’s dead right-
“rights that come from the state can be taken by the state. Rights that come from God cannot. When government officials argue that speech must be curtailed for social cohesion or multicultural harmony, they are not merely regulating conduct. They are redefining the citizen as a subject. A subject speaks only by permission. A free human—made in the image of God—speaks by right.”
Armed people are citizens, disarmed people are subjects.
110
So, once disarmed, how does a population become armed again?
60
In the digital age , is the pen still mightier than the sword?
Serious question.
00
FWIW – Canada and native title
“The White Man’s Woodpile”
https://pjmedia.com/david-solway-2/2026/01/01/the-white-mans-woodpile-n4947793
30
In there
“Most, if not all, of the Indian tribes in Canada insist that they are nations with the same rights and privileges that accrue to established nations around the world. They contend that they are sovereign entities entitled to international perks and accords. Ricardo Duchesne points out in Canada in Decay that a tribe is not a nation. “A tribe consists of people with a distinct set of cultural and linguistic traits that are not yet integrated into a nation with clear boundaries, a centralized authority, a written language, a legal code, a network of communications, a reasonably centralized army [and] a bureaucracy capable of enforcing the state.”
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“If we want to know what kind of winter we can expect, we look at the white man’s woodpile.”
A new chief took over upon the death of his father and wanted to immediately show his worth as a leader and decision maker. As it was late fall, he thought that accurately predicting the strength of the forthcoming winter and successfully leading his tribe through it would be a great way to consolidate his position.
The chief secretly rang the met bureau and asked how bad winter was expected to be. The call center suggested that it would be a little worse than the previous winter. The chief then directed his tribe to collect more firewood.
A few days later the chief called the bureau again only this time he was told that the forecast had been revised and the new forecast for winter was that it would be far worse than the previous year. The chief called his tribe together and directed them to double their efforts in gathering firewood.
Two days later the chief again called the bureau, and this time was told that the forecast was for possibly the worst winter the region had ever experienced. Frustrated by this continuing saga of worse possible outcomes the chief asked the operator why it was that every time he rang the forecast was worse than the earlier one. The operator apologized to the chief and said that the bureau took a lot of things into consideration when doing their modelling and that given the fact the local Indian tribe was stockpiling so much wood it now looked like it was going to be a really bad winter.
40
FWIW
“THE ULTIMATE AMBITION OF THE LEFT IS ALWAYS THOUGHT CONTROL: ”
“It is grotesque that one of the most basic freedoms in fiction-writing, the freedom to envision a different world and explore what those differences might mean, is being attacked in the hopes of censoring even the possibility of imagining a world that does not meet with the approval of these narrow-minded, authoritarian tyrants.
This is the *opposite* of creativity. I hope they’re ashamed. I’m sure they’re not.”
https://x.com/mcahogarth/status/2006855926423134484
Via https://instapundit.com/766271/#disqus_thread
50
The Centre Left is not running on a platform of Thought Control.
Whereas the far left and far right are interested in thought control.
07
“The Centre Left is not running on a platform of Thought Control.”
Who are you trying to kid! EVERY Govt wants thought control, its the only way they can get rich and stay in power! The whole idea of Govt is based on propaganda via Press Release, lies and fraud via MSM and censorship both outright and underhand. Its not called The Uniparty for nothing!
50
The difference being that the “far left” is in power.
60